Your Bibles now to Isaiah 62, Isaiah 62.
You can find that on page 621 in the chair Bibles around you.
Isaiah 62 is it's connected to the, the chapter that precedes
it. And just two verses before this
chapter, we read of, of God's people being like a bride
adorned with jewels. And this, this wedding theme
continues into this 62nd chapter as we hear Isaiah's vision of a
wedding. And it's the greatest wedding
that all other weddings point to.
It's the marriage between Christ and his bride, the church.
This is our future wedding. And in this vision we see some
essential wedding elements that we see in weddings today, a
public gathering of witnesses. The bride is given a new name,
the bridegroom delights in and rejoices over his bride, and
there is a solemn vow. So look for these elements now
as we read Isaiah 62. For Zion's sake I will not keep
silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet until her
righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as
a burning torch. The nation shall see your
righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be
called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a
royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no more be termed forsaken, and your land shall no
more be termed desolate, but you shall be called.
My delight is in her, and your land married, for the Lord
delights in you. And your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons
marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices
over the bride, so, so shall your God rejoice over you.
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set Watchmen all the day
and all the night. They shall never be silent.
You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and
give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes
it a praise in the earth. The Lord has sworn by His right
hand and by His mighty arm. I will not again give your grain
to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your
wine which for which you have labored, but those who garner it
shall eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it
shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.
Go through, go through the gates, prepare the way for the
people, Build up, build up the highway, clear it of stones,
lift up a signal for the peoples.
Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth.
Say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your salvation comes.
Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
And they shall be called the holy people, the redeemed of the
Lord, and you shall be called sought out, a city not forsaken.
Let's pray, Heavenly Father, as we consider this profound and
amazing vision of this future wedding, the wedding of all
weddings. Lord, I pray that we would be
able to rest in the depth of your love for us, that we would
be changed by the identity we have in you, in your love.
So Lord, I pray that we would see the gospel clearly in this
passage. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
A number of years ago, ESPN ran a series of commercials titled
It's Not Crazy, It's Sports 1 commercial begins with a girl in
different stages of her life talking to her friends about how
she how she imagines that she'll be proposed to one day.
She dreams of of a White Horse being involved, maybe a gondola,
butterflies and words of desperate love as an adult.
Then she meets a guy that she really likes and she she
suspects that he's going to propose on their romantic trip
to the islands. The next clip is then of her at
a Detroit, her and her guy at a Detroit Tigers game, and all of
a sudden she finds herself being proposed to on the Jumbotron in
response to his proposal. She mutters as shocked and
disappointed. Sure, And her new fiance, in his
great joy, shouts go tigers. Sometimes our dreams and visions
of what the future will be like just doesn't quite turn out how
we thought it would. Every love story, every marriage
has its disappointments. But this vision of Isaiah, of
the ultimate love story, it, It's not a Daydream destined to
disappoint. It's a sure reality that will
come and will be far more glorious and wonderful than what
we could ever imagine. As we walk through this vision,
we'll consider three points so you can see in your outline.
There's Zion, a vision of a glorious bride #2 Zion, a vision
of a gathered bride #3 Jesus, a vision of a returning, rewarded
and rejoicing king. And then we'll end with So what?
So first let's look now at the 1st 9 verses and consider the
vision of Isaiah as a glorious, the vision of Zion as a glorious
bride. In order to understand the
bride's glory, we'll need to 1st understand how it how it emerges
out of the story of her shame. As we've seen throughout the
book of Isaiah, God's been calling Israel to repentance for
her rebellion against him, for how she's turned away from him
to idols and violence and injustices.
And so as we read, as we read in Isaiah 54, Israel is like a
widow deserted by her husband, barren and without children,
disgraced and forsaken, being crushed by God's overflowing
anger. But as God promised in that
chapter, his anger would be but for a moment, because He has
loved his people with an everlasting love.
And so as we come to the first verse of chapter 62, we hear
that Zion is still in her shame, in desperate need of
righteousness and salvation. Look with me at verse one.
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake
I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as
brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.
The first question we must ask of this verse here is, is who is
the I speaking here? Is it Isaiah or is it the
anointed one? From the beginning of Isaiah 61,
the Spirit of the Lord has anointed me.
Commentators differ here, and neither interpretation has any
major problems. If it is the anointed one
speaking, it aligns well with how we know that the
righteousness and salvation of God's people comes from God
speaking His Word, His Gospel, into their hearts.
If if this is Isaiah speaking, we know that he is proclaiming
God's word, that the gospel of the suffering servant, the
anointed. 1 And we know that people are saved by that
message. And in one sense, because Isaiah
is being inspired by the Spirit of Christ, it is true in another
sense that both Jesus and the prophet are speaking.
Here God and God's prophets will not be silent.
They will persist in proclaiming the good news of repentance and
faith of the coming Kingdom of Jesus Christ until all the bride
of Christ is saved, her shame is removed, and she is clothed in
brilliant righteousness. And today we, we need this same
kind of passionate persistence in our preachers, A commitment
to not let anything silence our proclamation of the gospel.
We we certainly need God to raise up more preachers like
Isaiah, and may he do so in and through our church.
We also see in verse one, the bride's flame, her righteousness
and her salvation are like a flaming torch, a light shining
out of the darkness. That that, that that theme, that
theme of a light shining out of darkness.
That's a theme we've heard quite a few times here in the book of
Isaiah. So why is her salvation and
righteousness shining forth like a flame?
What's the purpose of that? It's to be like a beacon to the
whole world. Look at verse 2.
The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings
your glory. Here we see the bride's global
fame. The nations and all the kings of
the earth will see her glory. She will shine in beautiful
righteousness, a beauty and glory foreign to and far greater
than anything that the world has ever seen.
This is something probably similar to what Peter, James,
and John witnessed when Jesus was transfigured before them.
Is that that kind of heavenly glory?
Something that's otherworldly? A day is coming when all the
world will witness and be stunned by the glory of Zion.
In that day the wealth and beauty and of the rich and
famous will just be as like mere rags in comparison to the glory
of the bride of Christ. So don't don't live for the
riches and and fame of this world.
You'll be selling yourself far too short.
There is a greater glory coming for those who love Christ.
The nations will see the bride's global fame and the bride's
relationship to those nations will change.
Jump down to verses 8:00 and 9:00.
Here we see that change. Here God gives an oath, A solemn
marriage vow in a sense, to protect her from the nation's.
Verse 8, The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by His mighty
arm. I will not again give your grain
to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your
wine for which you have labored, for those who garner it shall
eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it shall drink
it in the courts of my sanctuary.
The language here mimics the mimics the language of the
covenant blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28 that if Israel
fails to obey God, they will experience the curse of a
foreign nation coming and eating the fruit of their land.
And we see that curse carried out with the the Babylonians.
But here God promises for Zion's interactions with the nations to
change. Instead of the nations being at
war with her and and taking her land and her property, the bride
will be completely protected and she will enjoy the fruits of her
land forever. The book of Hebrews speaks of
this country as the better country, the heavenly one,
reminding us that that we who walk by faith, we are strangers
and exiles on earth. We, we don't have a holy nation,
a holy country to go to. We, we're strangers and exiles
on earth. Until God gives us that heavenly
country. In that country there will be no
more need for police officers, military walls, or insurance.
Our inheritance, our promised land, will forever be ours with
no threat of loss. Another aspect of the Bride's
glory is that she's given a new name.
Read with me starting in the middle of verse 2.
And you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord
will give. You shall be a crown of beauty
in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your
God. You shall no more, no more be
termed forsaken. And your land shall no more be
termed desolate, but you shall be called.
My delight is in her, and your land married.
For the Lord delights in you. And your land shall be married.
In the first marriage between the first people, Adam and Eve,
the woman is given that name, that name woman.
And now here in the last marriage, this royal bride is
also given a new name and several new names.
Actually, no longer will she be called forsaken or desolate, but
she shall be called Hefsibah. My delight is in her and Beulah,
which means married in Christ. We are given a new identity to
replace our old shameful one. Our new identity is inseparably
tied to our relationship with God, to his love for us.
And then at the end of this chapter in verse 12, we're given
four more new names, verse 12. And they shall be called the
holy people, the redeemed of the Lord, and you shall be called,
sought out, a city not forsaken. Each of these names speaks to
the saving work of God, the relentless pursuit of God to
seek out, redeem, and sanctify for himself a people.
And at the cross we see the great extent to which God
pursued his bride, the great lengths that he went to because
of his love for her brothers and sisters in Christ.
These here in this chapter, these are your names.
This is your identity. This is who you are.
Rest in that identity, Rest in God's love, and then live out of
that rest. Zion's future is glorious.
Her shame will be exchanged with salvation and righteousness, her
fame and beauty will be witnessed by the whole world.
Her land will be safe forever, and she will be given a new name
that will always remind her of God's love for her and the
extent to which he pursued her. Now we come to the second point.
Zion, a vision of a gathered bride.
A gathered bride. Let's look at verses 10 and 11.
Go through, go through the gates.
Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway.
Clear it of stones. Lift up a signal over the
peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed
to the end of the earth. Say to the daughter of Zion,
Behold, your salvation comes. Behold, His reward is with him,
and his recompense before him. Before the bride appears before
her husband in all her glory, she must be first gathered from
the ends of the earth. In the in the 6th century BC,
the exile of Judah had scattered God's people all around the
Middle East and beyond, And so there was a longing for God's
people to be gathered back in the Promised Land.
And while this may be a prophecy in part of the return of the
Exiles in the days of of Zerubbabel and Ezra and
Nehemiah, I think this this passage is ultimately fulfilled
at Christ's second coming. In verse 10 we hear the repeated
calls for people to enter through the gates of Jerusalem
for the for the roads of the city to be built and cleared for
the coming bride. In verse 11 we see that God has
sent a proclamation out to the ends of the earth to alert the
daughter of Zion scattered abroad that her time of
salvation has come. Jesus taught this very thing in
Matthew 24, saying, And he, the Son of Man, will send out his
angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect
from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Here Jesus speaks of the gathering of God's elect, which
refers not just to Jewish believers, but to Gentile
believers as well. I think this command here, this
command to prepare the way for the bride is something that we
as a church today that we need to hear and heed.
This is something that we can obey even now.
The highway to Christ is often obstructed for some people, or
maybe there's not even a road at all.
So practically, how do we prepare the way for the bride to
be gathered through the discipleship of our children,
through evangelism and missions, and through the regular
preaching of God's Word, people hear the gospel and come to
faith in Christ. We prepare the way by calling
people to turn away from their sins, sin.
That's the that's the biggest obstacle on the road between
between them and Christ. We prepare the way by by
building trusting and loving relationships with people that
that don't know Christ, getting that that relationship going
where there then can be a context for speaking the gospel.
We also prepare the road to Christ for his lecture on the
world through Bible translation and distribution, or as we heard
about for what the Mccafferty's are doing, translation of the
Catechism and other other wonderful resources.
As people hear God's word in their language for the first
time, they can hear of the narrow Rd. of faith that can
lead them to God. The bride of Christ will be
made-up of people from every tongue, tribe, language and
nation. And so as a church, let's do our
part to make the path to Jesus more accessible to others.
So that's the that's the vision of the glorious and gathered
bride. And so now we'll consider the
bridegroom, Jesus, the returning, rewarded and
rejoicing king. So look with me again at verse
11. The word behold is spoken again
and again and again in this verse, three times calling Zion
to look and see with her own eyes the return of Christ and
his reward with him, his gathered and glorious bride.
As you may remember, Jesus name means salvation, right?
Jesus name means salvation. And so when Zion looks and sees
her salvation coming, she sees him and he's not alone.
His reward is with him and his recompense before him.
The bride of Christ is his reward, His payment, in a sense,
for the salvation he accomplished with his own blood.
Moravian missionaries of the 18th century had had a had a
rallying cry that echoes this verse.
They would say, may the Lamb who was slain receive the reward of
his suffering. May the Lamb who was slain
receive the reward of his suffering.
I think that's a really powerful phrase.
That's the goal of missions. That's the mission of the
church, to give the Lamb who was slain his reward.
Jesus is worthy of the cost of missions.
Jesus is worthy of the cost of sharing your faith.
Jesus is worthy of all of your love and devotion, for he was
slain and he conquered his death and your death so that he can
live with you and love you endlessly.
Jesus is worthy. Jesus will return soon to
receive his glorious reward, his bride.
And and he won't be when he comes back.
He won't be a stoic king, emotionally unattached to the
significance of what's going on. No, he will look.
He he will return as a joyful king rejoicing over his bride.
Look at look at verse 5. For as a young man marries a
young woman, so shall your sons marry you.
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your
God rejoice over you. Jesus, your God in your
bridegroom will rejoice over you.
At weddings when the bride is walking down the aisle, I always
make sure to to take a look over it and see that the face of the
groom. A few Sundays ago, I got to
officiate Tommy and Avery Stanek's wedding.
And it was, it was just awesome to see the joy on Tommy's face
as he saw his bride for the first time.
And what a wonderful thing it is that we can experience, in part,
joys like that so that we can get a taste for the kind of joy
that God has for us. And think about this God.
Think about this. God couldn't rejoice over us
with boundless joy if He didn't forgive us, right?
Apart from God's forgiveness because of our sin, there's just
really not a whole lot to be rejoicing over.
But because God forgave us our sins and justly dealt with them
by placing them upon Christ at the cross, He can rejoice over
us with no hesitation and the joy will be mutual.
We will respond in joy as well as a short of catechism family
is famously says the chief and the ultimate purpose for why we
exist is to glorify and enjoy God forever.
That's our ultimate purpose. But a a secondary purpose for
why we exist is that we might be enjoyed by God forever.
God delights in not only the glory and enjoyment we have in
Him, but he delights in his own enjoyment of us, His people.
He loves to love us. That's another reason why we
exist. He loves to love love us.
Isaiah 62 is a profound vision of the marriage between God and
his people, the ultimate love story.
So where are you in this vision? We're all in here.
You're you're either in the the gathered royal bride, adorned
and glorious being rejoiced over by God, being given everlasting
promises of loving protection and provision, or you're in the
the nations that that witnessed her beauty and and righteousness
and salvation, but who don't take part in it.
So where are you in this vision? Only Jesus can give you that the
the the the love that your heart has always been searching after
the kind of love that you were created for.
All other loves in this life will disappoint you.
So come to Jesus, give yourself fully to him your whole self.
Enter into His covenant of love, turn away from your sin, and you
will be saved, you will be righteous, and you will be
treasured and enjoyed and rejoiced over forever,
completely satisfied in His love.
So what? So how?
How should this vision give us a new vision for our lives?
We can't just hear something profound and beautiful like this
and then just walk out of these doors unchanged or unmotivated.
First here and heed the call to unceasing prayer for our
bridegroom's return. Unceasing prayer for our
bridegroom's return. We see this application from the
text itself and in in the 6th and 7th verses on your walls, O
Jerusalem, I have set Watchmen all the day and all the night.
They shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in
remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he
establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.
Here God is calling for Watchmen, for men and women,
boys and girls, who will be committed to ever watching for
the return of Christ and His bride, taking no rest and
praying for God to establish the New Jerusalem and make it a
praise in all the earth. Now you might think, well on
Jesus promised that He would, He's going to return.
So why do I need to watch and pray for it?
What? What are my little prayers going
to do about that? Yes, God is sovereign, and He
has His sovereign plan, but God works through means, and one
means that He calls His people to again and again and again is
the means of prayer. And in this passage and in
others, He calls us not only to pray, but to pray persistently
without ceasing. And so we must pray regularly
for Christ's return. We must take no rest and in a
sense, give God no rest as he continually hears our cries for
His Son's return. Jesus spoke of fasting while the
bridegroom is away. And so perhaps to support your
prayers, it may be fitting to fast every once in a while to
help you focus your prayers on Christ's return.
We need him to return as soon as possible, don't we?
As soon as possible if it would be his will.
He's just also have to understand that maybe he might
be delaying because there's still more of his bride that
need to be won over by his sacrificial love.
So let us be like Watchmen on the walls and take no rest in
our prayers. Secondly, we must hear and heed
the call of this vision to boldly proclaim this good news
to the nation's. We should imitate the passionate
persistence of verse one, the drive to not be silent, to not
be quiet, but to share the good news of Jesus with people until
the world sees the light of their salvation.
You don't need to be a pastor or a preacher to be passionate
about sharing the gospel. Far too many of us have been
have been silent and not sharing the hope that we have with those
around us. Far too long.
We've maybe we've been timid and and we've just kind of let
people live in darkness. For some of you, it's it might
be time to finally have that conversation with the person
that you're thinking about right now.
For some of you, it's it's time to get some training in in
evangelism or missions. For some of you, it's time to
learn how to define and explain the gospel, get to the basics.
For some of you, maybe it's time to have a conversation with your
spouse or, or just take a look at your own calendar and say,
hey, what's, what are, what are do our priorities line up with
God's priorities? For some of you, it's time to be
more consistent and focused in teaching your children about
Jesus. For some of you, it's time to
start supporting that missionary or that ministry that you've
been learning about. Now we all, we all tend towards
apathy when we experience resistance with people or, or
apathy when we just see how pervasive the darkness is in
this world. And it's just, it's just
everywhere. And what, what can the little
that I do? What, how can that impact all
the problems in our world? So we, we can get apathetic.
But let's come, let's combat that apathy and timidity with
persistent prayer, with prayer that that's what the apostle
Paul did in Ephesians chapter 6. He gives the Ephesians a prayer
request, says he pray for me. He says this.
To that end, keep alert with all perseverance.
Be like a watchman. Keep alert with all
perseverance. How, how, what does that look
like? Making supplication for all the
Saints. So praying for all the Saints,
and also for me, that words may be given me in opening my mouth
boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.
If Paul needed prayer to boldly share the gospel, I think we
need prayer too. So let's do that right now.
Let's pray for that boldness and for Christ to return and make
our faith into sight. Let's, let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we praise you for this glorious vision, a
vision that will surely come. We thank you.
We're in awe of the love that you have for us, even us, us who
have done so much wrong, us who have so many reasons for shame
because of what we have said and done.
We thank you that you have forgiven us in Christ.
Lord, I pray that that we would live in light of who we are, in
light of these identities of love.
And Lord, I pray that that we would shine forth your light,
that we would share your gospel persistently, that we would pray
persistently for the for your return.
Oh Lord God, may your Kingdom come, may your Kingdom of glory,
the everlasting Kingdom, may that come very, very soon.
This we pray in Jesus name, Amen.